Bronze-age and later religions won popular support by giving workers a day of rest:

...Jewish Shabbat ... is a weekly day of rest, observed from sundown on Friday until the appearance of three stars in the sky on Saturday night;
...Many Christians affirm commonly that... "Sabbath was made for man", meaning all mankind (Mark 2:27).
...Counting from the new moon, the Babylonians celebrated the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th as "holy-days",
...Buddhist rest day occurs "every seven or eight days"
...Thai Chinese likewise observe their Sabbaths
...The first day of the new moon, beginning at sunrise, is a holiday of quiet reflection and prayer among the Cherokee.
...The Quran states: "When the call is proclaimed to prayer on Friday, hasten earnestly to the Remembrance of Allah, and leave off business"
...Wicca... Eight sabbats ... are spaced at approximately even intervals throughout the year.
... (Confucianism): Laws of the Han Dynasty... required imperial officials to rest on every ... fifth day, within a ten-day Chinese week

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath
Making Sea Org workers toil through 364 or 365 days a year violates this humane custom. Plus, people, especially those in heavy labor, will be refreshed and work better after periodic rest. And, it gives them time to reflect... maybe they could have a job that values them instead of exploits them.

Many ministers, rabbis, imans, etc. work on their own Sabbath running the religious service, but often they have their own "days of rest." My Unitarian minister did church duties Wednesday-Saturday, preached on Sunday and took off Monday and Tuesday.

CoS orgs have "Sunday services" which are an empty copy of Christian or Jewish religious services, and mostly serve to make Scientology look like a religion. However, Sea Org workers, the supposed elite, don't get Sunday mornings off to sit in a service (unless ordered to do so to put on a show). They get a few hours to do their laundry and other personal tasks, but even that is trimmed down when Sea Org has some crisis. The true all-important day in Sea Org is Thursday, when weekly sales statistics are due at 2 PM.

Sea Org makes workers work all day, every day, without extra pay, for the supposed increased production, but workers are likely inefficient and sloppy from exhaustion. But there is an even more important reason that Sea Org makes its workers work every day - if they had a full day off, they could visit relatives, or take a long drive sightseeing. This means at least that they have time to listen to other people, who might offer them a better life, and at best they could get a 24-hour head start on an escape.

This especially relates to the RPF, the imprisoned state that is supposedly voluntary, but that ends up being tightly guarded and controlled. If the RPF workers were allowed all Sundays off, to do as they wish, and be with their spouse and family, they are even likelier to quit than regular Sea Org workers.

The US government can't make CoS give its workers a day of rest, because CoS would boo-hoo about "interfering with religion." The best we likely can do is make CoS follow federal and state minimum wage laws, including overtime, especially for the RPF inmates.

All of those religions have been around hundreds, or even thousands, or years, but they didn't do much to help modern workers. The churches turned a blind eye to child labor and other abuses until labor unions came along to help workers. Sadly, union membership is at a low, and many people don't realize they're reaping the benefits of union struggles, even if they don't belong to unions.

Some of us think those "real religions" came from the same place as Co$: the imagination of a con man who was seeking to get power and money.

Most "real" religions are considered legitimate only because those power grabs worked. They originated at a time when people didn't have access to the marketplace of ideas available today, so they took hold as family and societal traditions.

Joseph Smith published the Book of Mormon in 1830. His claim of dictating the text from ancient golden plates given to him by the angel Moroni is about as credible as the "research" behind Dianetics. The big difference is that the LDS became politically powerful, so Mormonism is considered a "real" religion. If Hubbard had rolled into town a hundred years earlier, Scientology (or whatever scam he dreamed up) might have the same sort of social legitimacy.

My personal favorite religion is Bokononism, which plays a pivotal role in the novel Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Bokononism is based on "a useful and harmless sort of horseshit". The First Book of Bokonon has the following disclaimer:

Don't be a fool! Close this book at once! [...] All of the true things that I am about to tell you are shameless lies.

I wish more creators of religion were more honest about their work. Even though Bokononism is Vonnegut's creation in a work of fiction, and there are only a few hundred words about it, it still makes at least as much sense to me as "real" religions.

Even the "satanic mills" in England at the start of the Industrial Revolution had Sundays off. In fact, the free time that child millworkers had on Sunday was channeled into learning how to read (and get some religion) through "The Sunday School Movement."http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/ask ... start.html

Workers in Europe and the early USA typically had Sunday off and it was unions that fought hard to get them Saturday off, too.

With all the sins of organized religion, their customs often did let the workers have one day off a week.